Five-year credit-default swaps protecting China’s sovereign debt rose 21 basis points this month to 107.5 in New York, the highest since Aug. 3, according to data provider CMA, which is owned by McGraw-Hill Cos. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated market. The contracts pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent if a government or company fails to adhere to its debt agreements.

1. I’ve heard conventional wisdom claims that China’s income stream from interests from US government bonds are sufficient for its defence expenditures (on paper). Will such money be able to save the Chinese Communists from financial ruin in such crisis?

2. Most European pundits are now saying that China’s financial instability is bigger than the Euro crisis, which BTW, is far from over and will get a lot worse. Which means many are predicting a crisis looming in China.

3. Over here in NZ (and Australia as well) everyone is still talking about China going through a slowdown. Any talks about a crash in China will get you labelled as nuts. No one can say the consequences if a financial crisis hits China – my educated guess is the economies of NZ and Australia will be in deep water as well because China is near the top or at least top 2 trade partners for either country. Also Canada will be in deep trouble as well as China buys a lot of Canada’s timber, wheat, and minerals.

4. What are your thoughts of the most bearish Western pundits predicting China’s economy will of course go down, but just as the US post-Great Depression and WWII that rose from the ruin to become the world’s largest economy, China will recover and be the 21st century’s largest economy and leader of the world. Thoughts?

AUSTRALIAN leaders will need to devise a new political deal and economic compact for the nation to manage the retreat of the China boom and avert the risk of a protracted recession.

Politics in Australia is moving into a new and tougher era as commodity prices ease and the dreams and expectations built on years of the China boom begin to shatter.

Wayne Swan’s coming budget is just the start of a tolling bell that will ring for years. It will embody revenue shortfalls and ongoing budget deficits, but his real challenge is to strike a balance between salvaging confidence in the short term and a pathway to budget balance in the longer term.

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加拿大環球郵報講澳洲經濟問題：

Australia’s GDP growth expanded merely 0.6% in the first quarter. This was after a 0.6% rise in Q4 2012. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people shorting the Australian dollar.

Minus export growth however, Societe Generale’s Albert Edwards writes that gross national expenditure (GNE) has fallen for two straight quarters.

“One of the biggest economic bubbles in history is now about to go into the Minsky masher,” writes Edwards. This refers to periods of speculation that lead to crisis, and was named after economist Hyman Minsky who wrote about the inherent instability of bull markets.

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This isn’t the first time the folks at Societe Generale have warned about Australia. Last year, Dylan Grice, who has since moved on to Edelweiss Holdings, published a note in which he described Australia as “a credit bubble built on a commodity market built on an even bigger Chinese credit bubble, Australia looks like leveraged leverage, a CDO squared.”

“We repeat the prognosis we gave this time last year that Australia is a leveraged time bomb waiting to blow. It is not a CDO, but a CDO squared. All we have in Australia is, at its simplest, a credit bubble built upon a commodity boom dependent for its sustenance on an even greater credit bubble in China. Yet even with Australia having enjoyed a commodity export boom it still managed to rack up a current account deficit of 4% of GDP last year! Australians have been living beyond their very ample means for a long, long time. Of all the economic bubbles I have seen over the last 30 years in this industry, this one is even more obvious than the rather prominent nose on my increasingly haggard face. And its ultimate fate is obvious to me too.

“Although a Chinese bumpy/hard landing will bring Australia to its knees, what will really deliver that killer crunching kick into the solar plexus will be all too familiar to followers of credit fuelled economic bubbles. What will send Australia into a deep recession after 22 years is the collapse in its grotesquely over-valued housing market. The outstanding 2013 Demographia International Housing Affordability Study has just been published and every single Australian region comes out as severely overvalued. And as in the 2012 study, 5 of the 15 most expensive cities of the world are in Australia! If China really is, as we believe, about to have its ‘Minsky moment’ there is no shadow of doubt in my mind that Australia will, end up in a deep, deep recession as 22 years of complacency and excess are unwound.”

The reason the world economy has kept ticking over is primarily because of those Asian economies mentioned. And, of course, China. Fortunately the Middle Kingdom does get the attention it deserves. After all, it is our largest export destination now. However, I maintain the analysis of China is a little skew-whiff at times and persistently negative.

The constant message we get about China is that it is slowing down and this is a very bad thing. Certainly slower growth in China is having a global impact. But I consider it is overstated because there is insufficient understanding that because China is now such a large economy, a 7 per cent growth rate is perfectly reasonable and desirable.

A simple bit of maths can show this. An economy that grows 10 per cent a year doubles in size every seven years. So if we give the Chinese economy a value of 100 in 1998 it will grow to a value of 200 in 2005 and 400 in 2012. A 10 per cent growth rate in 1998 means China grew 10 points that year and in 2005 by 20 points. A slower 7 per cent rise in 2013, when the economy is now worth 400, will mean growth of 28 points . . . still well in excess of the levels of 1998 and 2005.

For family reasons I have been to China regularly over the past 15 years. My impression is it cannot keep growing at 10 per cent and it is highly desirable that it aims for 7 per cent or even less so it can ease back on its congestion and pollution problems. And, as that little bit of maths above shows, a 7 per cent growth rate for such a large economy is still highly respectable.

The other factor to consider is China will benefit from the growth of the Southeast Asian countries mentioned. The region is likely to be a dynamic one for many years to come. So remember, despite the insistence of Travolta and Newton-John, Greece does not need to be The Word. Try Philippines or Indonesia for a change.